'Biggest' Astros Fan Not Happy

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"When I was a little girl growing up, they didn’t let girl play little league, but I could beat all the boys. And I just grew up loving the Astros."

When Houston resident Mickey Marvins says she loves the Astros, she means she really loves the Astros.

"This is my World Series ticket from game five."

Marvins has Astros memorabilia and pictures all over her house, including one area she calls her shrine.

"There’s pictures of me and my friends at the games."

So when Marvins heard about the Astros possibly switching from the National League to the American League, she wasn’t happy to say the least.

"Baseball is a game of tradition and statistics. And you just don’t uproot an organization and move it to a different league."

Marvins and her nephew decided to take matters into their own hands a while back by starting a website SaveOurStros.org. That was before the sale of the team went through.

"Well the biggest issue is that we have all these rivalries that we’ve developed over these fifty some odd years that we’ve been in the National League and when you uproot us and take us to the American League, we’ve lost those rivalries."

Currently there are 16 teams in the National League, 14 in the American League. Major league baseball would like to have two leagues of 15 a piece.

But no one in the National League volunteered to move. The Astros were up for sale this summer — a deal that had to be approved by the Major Baseball League. Marvins believes that and the fact that the team hasn’t done well lately is why Houston was picked.

"If the Astros had been in the World Series or the play-offs and they’d be consistent playing good, they would’ve never picked on us. They would’ve picked on somebody else. They figured they’ve got leverage."

A recent Houston Chronicle poll showed 76 percent of respondents opposing the change and some vowing to stop going to games. New owner Jim Crane addressed those fans at his first press conference.

"We’ll try to reach out to each and every one of them and try to convince them that we’re going to put a good product on the field and you know we’ve got a great facility here, one of the best facilities in baseball and it is fun to go to a baseball game, but we don’t want to lose anybody."

Mickey Marvins isn’t going as far as to say she’ll stop going to games. She’ll still be there, but as she puts it — it just won’t be the same.